1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

² To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;

³ To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

⁴ To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

⁵ A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

⁶ To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

⁷ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

⁸ My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

⁹ For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

¹⁰ My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

¹¹ If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

¹² Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

¹³ We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

¹⁴ Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:

¹⁵ My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:

¹⁶ For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

¹⁷ Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

¹⁸ And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.

¹⁹ So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

²⁶ I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

²⁷ When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

²⁸ Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

²⁹ For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord:

³⁰ They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

³¹ Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

³² For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

³³ But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

4 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

² Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

³ Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

⁴ Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

⁵ Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

⁶ But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

⁷ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

⁸ Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

⁹ Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

¹¹ Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.

¹² There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

¹³ Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

¹⁴ Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

¹⁵ For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

¹⁶ But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.

¹⁷ Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.